Books, Books and More Books: Clinton an Omnivorous Reader

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If there is still considerable uncertainty about the changes President-elect Bill Clinton intends to make after his inauguration on Jan. 20, at least one is now virtually carved in mahogany: there will be more bookshelves in the White House.

After Barbara Bush gave Hillary Clinton a tour of the private quarters at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue last month, Mrs. Clinton exclaimed to her friends here: "There aren't enough bookshelves!" She vowed to correct the situation.

The change will be perfectly in character. The Clintons added bookshelves to the Governor's Mansion here in Little Rock in 1979 after they moved in. When compelled to vacate, they constructed bookshelves in the house they bought on Midland Avenue; and when they returned to the mansion in 1983, they added more bookshelves.

The Clintons read books of all sorts, from Churchill to Clancy and from Lincoln to Ludlum. And that is the most striking feature of a cultural profile of the first-family-to-be pieced together in recent days from the recollections of longtime friends and associates.

In addition to his bibliophilia, the President-elect loves to sing, calls himself a movie addict and once in his youth considered becoming a professional jazz musician. Mrs. Clinton, who jokes with friends about her inability to carry a tune, prefers classical music to pop. Other Bookish Presidents

Of course, bookishness and other cultural interests are no index to success in politics. In fact, most political leaders prefer oral briefings to reading at length for themselves, and at least one, Adlai E. Stevenson, was seriously wounded by being caricatured as an egghead. But in modern times, such interests put Mr. Clinton in the company of, say, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy.

Ann McCoy, administrator of the Governor's Mansion, said that the Clintons' private library on the second floor, together with about a dozen still unopened book boxes in the attic, numbered about 4,500 volumes.

Deborah Sale, a senior adviser who has known Mr. Clinton since their high school days in Hot Springs, said that during the campaign, when a voter asked Mr. Clinton whether it was true that he had read 300 books in one year, he replied with a laugh: "That was in 1982 when I didn't have much else to do." Mr. Clinton had been defeated the previous year in his campaign for re-election.

Carolyn Staley, Mr. Clinton's next-door neighbor when he lived in Hot Springs and a close friend, said he would read at least four or five books a week.

Carol Allin, who ran the now-defunct Capitol Book Store here for 11 years, said Mr. Clinton used to browse in her shop about once a month and "never left without an armful of books." Such avid reading habits make Mr. Clinton seem positively erudite compared to George Bush, who appeared to freeze when asked on television in 1984 to name a book he had recently read. Eventually, Mr. Bush mentioned a 22-year-old best seller, "The Guns of August," by Barbara Tuchman.

A Current Favorite: Thoughts of a Stoic Last summer, Dee Dee Myers, Mr. Clinton's chief spokeswoman, caused a stir -- and aroused some skepticism -- when she reported that her boss's current favorite was the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius, which he reread every year or two.

The "Meditations" are not much of a reach for a present-day politician. Marcus Aurelius was a second-century Roman emperor whose victories were mostly undone (among other things, his conquering troops brought home a plague), and who consoled himself with the mind-over-matter Stoicism exemplified by statements like, "Do not think yourself hurt and you remain unhurt."

Another favorite of the Governor's, his aides say, is the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez's challenging "One Hundred Years of Solitude," a fantasy that conjures a phantasmagorical Latin America.

Mr. Clinton also reads books and periodicals in German, a skill he acquired as an undergraduate at Georgetown University, said BetsyWright, his former chief of staff. The President-elect has been sending his daughter, Chelsea, to a German-speaking summer camp in Minnesota for the last four or five years, she said, and he makes a point of spending time conversing with her in German.

From Pop to Plato, Many Books at Once

Rather than concentrate on one book at a time, aides say, Mr. Clinton usually reads several simultaneously, gulping down literary caviar and pretzels with the same enthusiasm. A typical load of books in the bag of reading material he travels with would include the latest Walter Mosley murder mystery, a biography of Lincoln or Churchill, a pop futurology selection like "Megatrends," a serious treatise on world economics like "Head to Head," by Lester Thurow, and a collection of Plato's Dialogues.

Indeed, Mr. Clinton appears to be almost obsessive about his cultural intake. Beverly Lindsey, a former director of the Arkansas Arts Council and a close Clinton friend, said that last week the President-elect and a group of friends watched "High Noon." Afterward, she said, he told the group it was the 19th time he had seen the movie, and then began describing the other occasions.

Ms. Wright said that Mr. Clinton had a prodigious memory for characters, actors, directors, situations and punchlines in books and movies.

Mrs. Lindsey acknowledged that much of the President-elect's reading was what she and her husband called "grocery store trash" like the technothrillers of Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum.

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Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Lindsey said, is a more consistently serious reader, devoting herself to law journals and recently Chaim Potok's 1967 best seller, "The Chosen."

A Fanatical Worker Of Crosswords

Aides who travel with Mr. Clinton also describe him as a crossword puzzle addict who works the puzzles out with a pen rather than a pencil and completes them in record time.

Eli Segal, Mr. Clinton's chief financial adviser, said that he took Mr. Clinton to the New York office of Games Magazine, a crossword puzzle bimonthly he publishes, and had the editor clock Mr. Clinton in working out one of the toughest puzzles.

Not everyone who knows Mr. Clinton is captivated by his reputation as a book person. Paul Greenberg, the editorial page editor of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said that Mr. Clinton regarded all culture as "ornamental rather than influential."

Responding to the reports of Mr. Clinton's enthusiasm for Marcus Aurelius, Mr. Greenberg wrote that it was about as plausible as "the news that Richard Nixon had taken up Zen." Mr. Greenberg added that "Clintonized culture" is little more than an exploitation of the arts for political purposes.

Ms. Wright, the former Clinton chief of staff, challenged that view. "His reading," she said, "is part of a lifelong quest for knowledge. He gains it from books and from people. He never stops."

Mr. Greenberg is correct in at least one respect. All politicians exploit the arts as naturally as they kiss babies, and Mr. Clinton is no exception.

Some Music for You And You and You

For example, at each of his inaugural celebrations as Governor, Mr. Clinton meticulously selected the music to be performed throughout the day, making sure that the program included black gospel singing, a Pentacostal hymn, a Baptist hymn, jazz, pop, rock, symphonic and operatic selections and, always, his favorite Bach choral, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

Partly, his aides insist, that is a sincere expression of the President-elect's love of music and ecclectic taste. Ms. Staley tells how startled she was one day in her youth to hear applause after practicing a Bach fugue on the piano in her home. Bill Clinton had heard her playing, slipped into her livingroom, listened quietly and then burst into applause.

That love of music is also evident when Cathie Buford, a former member of the Governor's staff, tells how exhilarated Mr. Clinton would be after participating in the annual all-night gospel sing in McNeil, Ark., and after singing in the choir of his church, the Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock. (Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, being members of the more reserved First United Methodist Church, infrequently attend these events.)

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the musical programs for Mr. Clinton's past inaugural festivities have been stitched together craftily, using music as a medium for reaching out to various political constituencies.

Mr. and Mrs. Clinton also collect porcelain, fine examples of which they were shown during several trade-promoting trips to the Far East. Arkansas sells more than $80 million a year in poultry to Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. The Clintons are no doubt motivated by an appreciation of the artistry of these objects. Did they, perhaps, suddenly fall in love with a seductively gleaming teapot? Or did they begin to collect in order to flatter their hosts? To foster trade? Probably, the Clintons themselves would find it hard to sort out the answers.

Compassionate Tour Of an Art Museum

Those who know Mr. Clinton best agree with Ms. Wright that he is attracted to books and the arts as a means of acquiring knowledge and satisfying an all-but-insatiable craving for mental stimulation. For example, David Leopoulos, a boyhood friend, recalled a guided tour of the Tate Gallery in London that Mr. Clinton gave him in the spring of 1970.

Mr. Leopoulos was then in the Army, stationed in Italy, and feeling distraught over the death of his mother, who had been murdered back home. Mr. Clinton, studying at Oxford, invited him to London to take his mind off of his grief.

"I had never heard of the Tate Gallery," Mr. Leopoulos recalled, "but he took me there from the station and began lecturing on the different paintings, the artists and what was going on politically at the time each work was painted that might have influenced it. I couldn't keep my mind on everything he was saying, but his knowledge was amazing."

Mr. Leopoulos said he had asked Mr. Clinton how he had learned so much, and the future President had replied: "Well, since I'm here in England, I felt I should expose myself to what's around."

A version of this article appears in print on December 10, 1992, on Page C00015 of the National edition with the headline: Books, Books and More Books: Clinton an Omnivorous Reader. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe